


When You Come 'Round Again

by misbegotten



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Convenient Amnesia is Convenient, Crack, Established Relationship, First Time, M/M, Magical Plot Device, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-02
Updated: 2012-03-02
Packaged: 2017-11-01 00:46:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbegotten/pseuds/misbegotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil doesn't remember his boyfriend. Featuring a Magical Plot Device, misunderstandings, sex, and chili (not necessarily in that order).</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Come 'Round Again

**Author's Note:**

> So kellifer_fic wrote this awesome amnesia fic and my brain went hmm... must have crack! My apologies. Shoutouts to james for the penguins and lanyon for being generally inspirational.

Hawkeye talks in his sleep. _Of course_ he does; there's very little filter between brain and mouth when he's conscious, so why should his subconscious be any different? He's currently draped over the side of Phil's infirmary bed, his cheek resting uncomfortably against Phil's knee, muttering, "No, not the penguins."

Phil mentally catalogues his various aches and pains, trying not to shift and awaken Barton who, frankly, looks like hell. He tries to remember the last thing he was doing before he woke up in a hospital bed, and comes up with the fuzzy recollection of a ray gun and a maniacal laugh and then... nothing.

He flexes his toes, just to make sure they're still there, and the movement is enough to stir Hawkeye, who blinks suddenly awake, hands going unconsciously for his bow. "Phil?" he asks, then vaults up and comes to the head of the bed. "You're awake," he says dumbly.

"It would seem so--" Phil begins, and then Barton is kissing him. It's dirty and a little desperate, and Phil makes a sort of startled squeak.

Barton finally comes up for air, something relieved in his eyes, and Phil blinks rapidly for a moment before managing, "Not that I don't appreciate your enthusiasm, Hawkeye, but do you mind telling me why you thought it appropriate to stick your tongue down my throat?"

Barton's face goes crestfallen. "Well, _fuck_."

*

A battery of tests later, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with Coulson that a few days of R&R won't fix, except that he seems to have a mental block in the shape of one Clint Barton. "So let me get this straight, you and I are together?"

Clint -- Phil can't help shifting his perspective slightly on Hawkeye now that he's been on the receiving end of that kiss -- has his feet on the infirmary bed and is balancing an arrow on the tip of his forefinger. "Um, yeah. For like, two years."

Two years. Phil is aghast. What else has he left in the remnants of his coma? Does he still know how to fire a gun? He seems to remember the mechanics. Can he still fill out a form 34-G? Yes, down to the last subsection. Does he still know his mother's chili recipe? The secret ingredient is still his secret. "And this weapon that Erasure," -- stupid name for a supervillain -- "hit me with, it's purpose is what?"

Clint concentrates very firmly on the arrow. "Erasing, apparently. We're not really sure. I kindofshothim." He shrugs. "R&D is working on it."

Phil feels like he should be very upset. That one of them should be very upset, at least. Instead, all he feels is a strange sense of detachment. He's in one piece, his mind is apparently sound, he just doesn't remember sharing his life with his lover of two years. Clint seems... well, he's not sure what Clint seems. The more tests the doctors had done, the more withdrawn Clint had become.

Right.

Phil is, if nothing else, a practical man. "I need clothes," he orders. Damned if he's going to sit around and let the doctors do more pointless testing. Fury has already issued a directive that Coulson is to stay either on base or at the Avengers mansion for the time being. He might as well be in familiar surroundings. "Let's get out of here."

*

"Agent Coulson! It is good that you are well," Thor booms from the kitchen. He has a sandwich that would feed a small family laid out on the table in front of him. Natasha gives him the eye over the rim of a cup of coffee, and Phil is suddenly acutely aware of the distance separating him and Clint. "Thank you," he says politely to Thor. He glances back at Clint and raises an eyebrow. "You want to show me where I--" Clint gets this shuttered look, and Phil feels a stab of frustration. " _We_ bunk?"

Clint leads the way without comment, down a hallway, up a flight of stairs, and into a large bedroom. There's a king-size bed flanked by nightstands, a chest of drawers and a dresser, and a bookshelf with a smattering of titles. A door at the end appears to lead into a bathroom, another to a walk-in closet from the glimpse he gets. The overall air is one of a life on hold -- there's a t-shirt crumpled on the floor, a paperback folded open on one nightstand, and the bedcovers are rumpled.

Phil's not sure what he expected; a sudden flood of memories, perhaps. This was where they lived, where they fucked and talked and did whatever the hell two SHIELD operatives did when they weren't on the job. He'd hoped for a glimpse of the life he'd lost, and instead got a sullen pseudo-boyfriend and the feeling that he was letting his side down rather badly.

"I'll move my stuff into another room," Clint says.

Phil's not sure what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything at all.

Damn.

*

As it turns out, Phil may as well have stayed at the base because nothing at the mansion stimulates his memory and, of course, things still need Avenging. Two weeks after the incident, Fury still won't let him back into the field, so once the Avengers have taken off to do their duty, Phil is left cooling his heels in the living room. There's a week's worth of reality TV on the TiVo, but Phil has no stomach for the travails of strangers. He considers chess with JARVIS as masochism. He ends up in the well-appointed kitchen, making chili.

Tony pads into the kitchen first, his arc reactor reflecting brightly off the fluorescent lighting. "Honey, you cooked!" he purrs, fishing a beer out of the refrigerator. Phil tosses him an opener as the rest of the team trails in, and suddenly the room is alive with sound and laughter and dramatic recreations of their exploits by Thor.

Phil dishes out bowls of chili, making sure that he's the one to hand Clint his. Clint has been noticeably absent around the mansion, either burying himself in the training room or simply disappearing like a wraith. "Meet me in our room tonight," Phil mutters to Clint. Clint betrays no hint that he heard, but Phil has every faith.

*

"You can't keep avoiding me, you know," Phil begins when Clint turns up in the doorway.

"I'm not avoiding you," Clint protests. "I'm just... giving you space."

Phil sits on the edge of the bed, wishing there was somewhere less provocative that they could talk in private. "Who said I wanted space?"

Clint stares at him, fingers flexing at his sides. "Look, you get zapped by some amnesia ray and the only thing you forget is us?" He makes a twirling motion in the air. "Maybe you wanted to forget."

Phil Coulson is a practical man. He says patiently, "Did it occur to you that maybe I lost the one thing I _didn't_ want to lose?"

Clint gapes at him for a moment, then shuts his jaw with a snap. "I... hadn't considered that."

Phil gives him a sad smile. "So basically you're saying I'm the secure one in this relationship?"

Clint flushes. Phil can see it even in the half-light of the doorway. "Maybe," he admits grudgingly.

Phil's had two weeks to think. "Look, why don't we try this the old-fashioned way. Let's do dinner. Start from there."

Clint nods.

Phil feels as though something is finally slotting into place.

*

"What's the last thing about us that you remember?" Clint asks. They're in a pizza joint, splitting a pitcher of beer and haggling over toppings. Clint favors mushrooms, while Phil lobbies for pineapple. They've been here before, Clint says, but nothing about it strikes Phil as familiar.

Phil thinks back to his clearest memory of Clint, as if it happened only yesterday instead of two years and some thousands of miles away. "The Ukraine, outside of Kiev. I was worried you'd get frostbite running around in the snow in those fingerless gloves."

Clint nods thoughtfully. "You were warming my hands, afterwards, and then you just kissed me."

"So I made the first move."

Clint lifts an eyebrow. "You were my handler. There was no way I was going to throw myself at you."

"And I thought all that comm chatter was flirting," Phil says mildly. He remembers the days, weeks leading up to that first kiss, has a nagging sense of something building then, of need and want. Now, sitting across from Clint for the first time since his injury, he also feels anger. How _dare_ someone take away something so precious as memory. He's been violated, and he wants to make someone accountable.

Clint must read something in his face, because he puts a hand on Phil's arm. "Hey, it's okay."

But it's really not, Phil thinks with regret.

*

Phil's on the shooting range with Clint. He empties a clip into a target, then watches as Clint does the same with a quiver of arrows at almost the same speed. He's dizzying and impressive, and Phil is struck by an almost irresistible urge to touch him. He clears his throat instead, and jerks his chin toward the house. "Want to go up?"

Clint settles into step beside him, the bow between them. "I thought we might try something different tonight," he says. They've gotten into the habit of grabbing dinner together, sometimes out, usually at places they frequented in the past that Phil can't remember.

"What did you have in mind?" Phil asks, but Clint just gives him a shy smile.

Two hours later, Clint pulls the car up to an unassuming brick house. There is a half-hearted attempt at a flower bed in the front, a paved driveway, and a tree that looks perfect for climbing if Phil wasn't quite so practical. It's all very suburban and anonymous, and Phil shoots Clint a puzzled look.

"You lived here," Clint says quietly. "When we first got together." His fingers tighten on the steering wheel, and he obviously has some trouble with the next words. "The first time we--" he chokes on it, "fucked, was here."

"The first time we made love," Phil corrects him gently. He doesn't remember the act, but he knows it wasn't something desperate and quick. He would have taken his time with Clint, would have wanted to savor the first time he put his mouth on Clint, or put his fingers inside him. He would have opened Clint gently, taken him slowly. He knows this, like he knows what's left of himself.

Phil's fingers move of their own accord, skating across Clint's cheek, and Clint turns in the driver's seat to face him, his mouth close. It only takes half a breath for Phil to lean forward and touch his lips to Clint's. It's warm and wet, and Clint doesn't hesitate to push his tongue forward greedily, demanding more. Phil kisses him again, cupping his hand at the back of Clint's neck to urge him forward, and then Clint makes a groaning sound that goes straight to Phil's cock. "Easy," he gasps, leaning back, letting his hand fall away from Clint. "I don't know if the suburbs can take our making out in the street."

Clint smirks, but there's a touch of of melancholy to it. "Right," he says with determination. "Dinner's on me."

*

After the kiss in the car, Clint goes back to disappearing at every opportunity. Phil is frustrated, not knowing how to bridge the gulf between them. Fortunately or not, he has little time to think about it because Fury's got him riding a desk -- situation reports won't fill out themselves -- and he's trying to come up with a bureaucratically-friendly way to describe Iron Man's recent swath of destruction when the phone rings. "Coulson," he answers absently, and there's a pause before Steve Rogers' voice comes down the line.

"I thought you would want to know that Hawkeye's in the infirmary. Everything's okay but--"

Phil has already hung up the phone and is maneuvering down the hallway to the elevator before Steve's words catch up with him. Everything's okay, he reminds himself, and restrains himself from bursting into the hospital room. He waits impatiently for the doctor to make a notation on Clint's chart, hands clenched at his side, and then asks, "How is he?"

"Superficial wounds," the doctor says reassuringly. But Phil can't help the knot of tension in his chest, and as he moves to the bedside and takes one of Clint's hands in his, he thinks ruefully that the last time this happened he woke up with a chunk of his life missing.

Then Clint's hand flexes in his and Clint opens his eyes. "Hey," he says weakly.

Phil smiles. "We've got to stop meeting like this."

Clint lets out a short bark of laughter, then winces and presses a hand to his side. "Ow." And, because all of his memories of Clint include him chafing under supervised medical care, "When will they spring me?"

Phil lets his hand fall away. "When you're fit for duty," he says shortly. The tightness in his chest hasn't eased. It feels an awful lot like love.

*

Clint gets a time-out from Avenging, and spends the time skulking around the mansion. He never strays far from Phil, though, and Phil takes some comfort in that. He feels strangely nervous, like he's on the precipice of something that could go wrong very badly, but their mutual skittishness only makes him more determined to close the gap between them.

He starts small, with minor touches. His shoulder brushes Clint's in the kitchen, and his finger traces Clint's when he hands him a cup of coffee. Clint's on the couch watching Junkyard Wars and Phil pauses behind him, letting his hand rest on the back of Clint's neck for the briefest moment. They're going out for pizza again -- Phil won the pineapple debate -- and he touches his hand to the small of Clint's back as they enter the restaurant.

Things come to a head when Phil wanders into the room Clint claimed as his own, and doesn't see Clint. He hears the shower going, however, and prepares to make his retreat when a high whine stops him. It's pained and gorgeous, and Phil closes his eyes picturing Clint, his skin slicked by water, one hand on the tiles as the other is wrapped around his dick. "Phil," he hears faintly under the rush of blood in his ears, and he knows he's flushing, hands shaking at the incontrovertible proof that Clint still wants him.

Flustered, he sits down on the bed.

Philip J. Coulson is a practical man. Got an enemy? Neutralize it. Need a plan? Improvise. Want to seduce your former lover? Do it.

He hears the shower turn off, and he waits patiently for Clint to emerge. He does, with a towel slung around his waist and another rubbing his hair. He looks vulnerable without bow and arrow. Or hair gel, for that matter.

Clint stills, the towel still at his head, when he realizes Phil is in the room. "Hey," he says noncommittally. "Did you want something?"

Phil considers the trite answer -- "You" -- and opts for unbuttoning his shirt instead. Clint stares, fascinated, as the fabric gives way inch by inch, and he swallows heavily.

"Phil," he says thickly. "I don't know if I can do this."

"Do what, Agent Barton?" Phil asks soberly. "You sounded quite... capable in there."

He shrugs out of his shirt and strips off the t-shirt underneath. The climate-controlled air is cool on his chest.

Clint drops the towel he was using on his hair, but cinches the one at his waist more firmly. "This. _Us_. I'm not sure I can do it again."

Phil hesitates, hand hovering at his belt buckle. "Did I do something wrong? Did I--" A thousand possibilities rush through his mind, all of them grim. "Did I force you into something?"

Clint looks horrified. "No. Never. It was always mutual. Us, we were always good together." He closes his eyes briefly, obviously struggling. "I just don't know if I can stand losing you again."

"I'm not going anywhere," Phil says firmly.

"You said that before," Clint says. "And look what happened."

Phil wonders how many times they've already had this argument, or if they'd made some sort of peace with the fact that a life in SHIELD was a life on the edge.

"I'm not going anywhere," Phil repeats. "Zap me with a thousand memory wiping rays, and I'm always going to come back to you."

Clint's breath hitches, and he steps forward, closing the distance between them. "If I could keep you out of the field..."

"There's no one you'd rather have on the other side of a comm than me," Phil says. He puts his hands on Clint's hips.

"But if you could be safe--" Clint starts.

"The world isn't safe, Clint. We make it a better place. Together." Damn, he's starting to sound like a motivational poster, but Phil wants desperately to get through to Clint. "Do you think it didn't scare the hell out of me to see you in the infirmary? Don't you know that you're under my skin? I can't undo it, and wouldn't if I could."

Clint leans down and kisses him hesitantly. It's a ghost of a touch, then something more insistent and Clint makes a needy sound at the back of his throat. "Swear you're not going to leave me again, Phil."

Phil cups his hand at the back of Clint's neck, urging him down again. He licks into Clint's mouth, a tangle of teeth and tongues. "Never," he says. "I'll never leave you again."

Clint groans and lets his towel fall to the floor as he pushes Phil back against the mattress. Clint is already half-hard again, and he thrusts his thigh between Phil's legs to spread them. "Wanted you so damned much," Clint mutters as he fumbles for Phil's belt, and it's a race between the two of them to see who can disentangle it from Phil's pants. Clint wins and drops it off the bed, while Phil unbuttons his pants. Clint tugs impatiently on the fabric, and Phil winces internally as a few seams pop, but then he's got his pants down to his knees, and is finally able to kick them off awkwardly in the general direction of the floor.

Clint's got a predatory look in his eye as he hovers over Phil's cock, tenting the line of his boxers. "Tell me you want this," he says, his voice thick. "Tell me you need it."

"Hawkeye, if you don't put your hands on my dick in the next thirty seconds, I'll make sure you're grounded indefinitely."

Clint grins and pulls down Phil's underwear. "Yes sir," he says, easing the fabric over Phil's hips and down to his toes, before balling the boxers up and launching them in the air. "Mission accepted, sir."

The first touch of his hand on Phil is like cool water in the middle of a drought. Phil bucks up involuntarily, and Clint puts a calming hand on his hip while the other coaxes his cock to full hardness. He's got a deft touch and he obviously knows what Phil likes better than Phil himself. Phil moans as Clint slipslides down the length of his cock, then back up with a moment to rub his thumb over the head. Down and up, and Phil can't hear anything except Clint breathing above him, can't see anything but Clint's hand working him, can't feel anything but the rush of desire and need and _rightness_.

"Wait," he croaks, blowing out a frustrated huff of air as he pushes off an impending orgasm. Clint looks at him, confused, until Phil gestures "come to me" with his hand. "I want to feel you. Be inside you."

Clint gets that shy smile again, and Phil feels damned near sappy. Clint scoots up on the bed and fumbles in the nightstand, emerging triumphantly with lube. He slides some between his fingers and reaches around to open himself, but Phil takes Clint's hand and rubs the sticky mess onto his own. "Let me," he says, and Clint settles face down onto the mattress, his head on folded arms.

One finger glides in easily, but Phil is determined to take this slow and he makes sure Clint is good and wet before adding another. Clint huffs at the second finger, his hips twisting a little, and Phil stills but Clint says softly, "Go on," and so he does. He crooks his fingers at Clint's prostate and Clint lets out a whine, but it's a good sound, full of want. Three fingers deep, and Phil can't think of anything but how perfect Clint is going to feel, and he stretches Clint carefully.

"You okay?" he asks, and Clint laughs.

"You always ask that," Clint says, with a great deal of fondness. "I'm great." Clint rolls to the side and draws Phil down for a deep kiss. "Lay down for me," he says, so Phil does. Clint jacks Phil's cock erect, the remnants of lube on his fingers combining with precome to coat it, and rocks back on his heels. "You ready for this?"

It takes Phil a moment to catch Clint's meaning and by then Clint has inched back onto Phil's cock, letting him inside, and Phil thinks it's possible to go blind from overwhelming sensation because Clint is taking him, swallowing him whole. He shudders as Clint's ass comes to rest on his pelvis, and he grinds out a moan when Clint starts to move. It doesn't take much to short out Phil's synapses, just the steady, inexorable pull of Clint riding his dick, and he clenches his hands into the sheets as he tries to hang on.

"C'mon baby," Clint mutters, his face red from exertion, and Phil finally has presence of mind enough to reach up for Clint's erection. Their pace gets more frantic, Clint trying to lean into Phil's grasp even as he envelops Phil's cock, and it's awkward and laughable except that Phil is too far gone to care about the mechanics of really good fucking sex. He concentrates on Clint, only Clint, and finally Clint is coming, spurting thick and hot against Phil's belly, and Phil raises his hips, grinding into Clint as he comes and comes.

Clint eases off him, and then falls heavily on the mattress next to him. "That was even better than our last first time," he says, sounding smug.

"I'll take that as the compliment it was surely intended," Phil manages. He's exhausted, and sweaty, and sticky, and all he wants right now is to tangle his legs together with Clint's and go to sleep. "Do I normally pass out after good sex?"

Clint brushes the hair back from his forehead. "It's all good sex. But yeah."

"Oh, good then," Phil says sleepily. He draws Clint down to the bed with him, and closes his eyes.

*

Hawkeye talks in his sleep. _Of course_ he does. At the moment, his head is on Phil's chest and he's drooling a little. Phil mentally catalogues all the things wrong with his current situation -- he's only half under the covers, he's sticky in places that are better not mentioned, and he really has to pee. There's also the fact that he needs to get field authorization again, and find a way to permanently disable the amnesia ray still in R &D's clutches.

"M'not a penguin," Clint says distinctly, and burrows closer against Phil.

"Of course you're not," he says soothingly. Clint smiles in his sleep.

Well, everything else can wait, really. He's got new memories to make.


End file.
